Who is God? Liege Lord

Who is God?

King: Liege Lord

Liege Lord: A feudal lord entitled to allegiance and service (Webster's Online Dictionary).

In this age of democracy, we have lost much of the concept of allegiance, submission and dependence on another. Some concept of each is retained, but the weight of their meaning is somewhat dimmed by lack of positive contemporary examples. So, I'll try to explain some concepts from the feudal era that may help with understanding these concepts in a new light.

In the feudal system, the King and local lords could grant land to vassals. Vassals referred to their lords as 'my Liege' - you may have heard this term in some historical movies. Vassalage was sworn in by a ceremony in which the person becoming that vassal sword alliegiance and service to the lord. This oath was to create a bond between the two people that was supposed to last their lives.

In this system, the Lord protected and provided for his vassals, and the vassals were to stay loyal to the King and fight for Him in battles when called. (Encyclopedia Britannica; The Middle Ages Website ).

We are, in effect, vassals to God: when someone accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour, you are making covenant with God to say, 'I recognise your authority over me. I have glimpsed the fact that You are a good, merciful, powerful God who actually loves me so I choose to submit to You and obey You. You are my Liege." 

In the Old Testament, covenants were never broken. The Old and New Testament is another way of saying 'Old Covenant' and 'New Covenant'. We are under the New Covenant Jesus made in His blood. We make a commitment to loyalty, obedience and service to God, and He has sworn to bless and protect and be God to us. The difference is that we are not just servants, but family. The other great difference is that our Lord has sacrificed His own life to set us free from our old lord of Satan, sin and death. He is worthy of our love and allegiance.

Everyday, there is a battle for the Throne of Your Heart

There really is. Throughout each day, you will meet many decision-points where you choose your way of dealing with something, or God's way. In essence, you are choosing who is sitting on the throne of your heart. Many people are in a perpetual state of rebellion by sitting on the throne in their hearts even though they "received Jesus as Lord and Saviour".

See R.Sipe's article "Who's on the Throne?" on his blog 'Daily Discipleship' for a clear and insightful commentary on this topic, and a useful diagram that helps illustrate this concept.

Jesus taught that only those who keep His commandments (do things His way) are true lovers of God. So the next time someone describes someone else as, "they love the Lord" - measure that statement against Jesus' definition of 'loving the Lord':

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” - John 14:21

If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? - 1 John 4:20

Notice that not everyone who has Jesus' commandments loves Him. Only those who HAVE them AND KEEP (value, treasure, obey) them are those who love God.

The word 'manifest' means 'to exhibit, display, to reveal its presence, to put beyond a shadow of a doubt' (Webster's Online Dictionary). Do you want Jesus to MANIFEST himself to you? Have AND keep His commandments.

 Eph 2:1-3 & Col 3:5-7 show us that those who are deemed disobedient are those who conduct their lives to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Romans 8:8 tells us that the people who walk in the flesh cannot please God.
THEREFORE -  to walk in the Spirit is to walk in obedience. In order to do this, we must deny the urges to fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

• walking in the Spirit requires submission to our Liege.   
• If we live our lives focused on the needs and desires of our body, we have deposed God from His throne, and made ourselves king.
• this is a choice that we have to continually make. 

Let us determine in our hearts that God should always be King. We fall when we give ourselves the right to sit on the throne when we have no business there at all.

How do we tell if we are ‘walking’ in the flesh instead of the Spirit?

1.     Be able to identify how the flesh operates: Gal 5:19-21 All the works of the flesh are disobedience to the commandments of God - so any disobedience constitutes to walking in the flesh.

3.     Rom 8:6 – the consequence of carnal living is death; that of the Spirit is life.
We can tell if we’re not in the Spirit if evidence of the law of sin and death is at work: anxiety, stress, fear, anger, sickness, depression etc
If we are walking in the Spirit, we will be experiencing the opposite: peace, joy, blessing, efficiency, health etc.

Similarly, what are your MOTIVATORS? Common ones are fear, anxiety, lust, greed. These are fleshly motivators. If we act according to them, we are acting according to our carnal nature that is an enemy to God and cannot (read 'impossible to') be subject to His laws (Rom 8:7). This is therefore disobedience and rebellion to God.

If we are led by the Spirit, we would be led by His nature: love, peace, wisdom. Therefore anything that is opposite or in conflict with these things is not of God. Walk in the Spirit, and you will be walking in obedience.

Choosing the ways of the Spirit
a) How do we ‘put to death’ the deeds of the flesh?
What does it mean in Rom 8:15 – “…by the Spirit put to death the  deeds of the body”

Answer: Gal 5:16 - Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

This is by no means an easy thing - it is a struggle everyday for the throne of your heart. Will you let flesh rule, or His Spirit?

For example:

• Tempted to feel irritated at someone? - instead, choose to speak a soft word of encouragement. And keep it up, too!
• Someone at home is grumpy and says things that could make you grumpy too. Instead of letting yourself get riled up and infected by the grumpiness, respond to the person, not the attitude because 'love is not easily provoked' (read 1 Cor 13 for more definitions of love)
• Tempted to be lazy and not prepare for tomorrow's big day - stop and ask God for wisdom for how to prepare, then do it.
• Thoughts about the impending exam or placement make you anxious. You stay up all night burning the midnight oil, get even more stressed when you realise that you aren't remembering everything. You get tired and depressed and think that you will fail. This is a sure sign that you have been 'leaning on the arm of flesh' - you're depending on your own ability and not God's. Instead, of going through all that - at the first thought of anxiety, apply Phil 4:6-7 - be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and thanksgiving, give your requests to God...with thanksgiving. Then, ask God for wisdom on what and how to study, then do it without giving in to the thoughts of fear.
  
  See my article

a) Apply the Law of Lift

This is what I like to call the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The law of sin and death, which is what our bodies like to operate in, keep us bound to our limitations an weaknesses so that we are bound to fail. This is what I believe is analogous to the law of gravity. It is a law that is ubiquitous and seemingly unconquerable. BUT if you apply the law of lift, you are free to work in the bounds of another law that is able to overcome gravity. This is the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Applying this law is to walk in obedience to God's Word, and choosing to be motivated and lead by love, wisdom and peace - because GOd is love, wisdom and peace.

b) Find godly sources of visual and auditory input to feed our spirit with the things of God

c) Make practical steps

Make a list of the commandments and teachings in the Bible then identify the ones we should be doing but may not be very good at. Then, make steps to keep that commandment consistently until it becomes your own habit.

Example list:

•  When someone borrows something from you, don’t ask for it back
• When you pray privately, do it in secret
• Pay your tithes by budgeting for it first before all the bills and expected expenses 
• Forgive others and ask for forgiveness before coming to God in prayer. 
• Keep on praying in the spirit. Use a common occurrence of something in your life as a trigger for prayer eg toilet breaks (works for me!) - avoid choosing triggers that will keep you busy for too long eg phone calls
• Consider others over and beyond yourself: when tempted to look after yourself first, choose looking after another instead. Make sure you do this in common-sense driven by wisdom, not selfish agendas. 
• Judge not. Search your own self first and deal with it with God before you think anything negative about someone else.
• Be anxious for nothing but in prayer and supplication, present your requests with thanksgiving to God.
• Honour the Sabbath Day: search the Bible for God's version of keeping a Sabbath Day holy, then apply steps to gradually make your day match His version.

N.B Apologies for strange font size differences in this article - Blogger seems to be playing up and I don't know how to fix it!

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